


Youth Gone Wild

by Iben



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:44:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3421505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iben/pseuds/Iben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is young and up to no good, but so is everyone else as well, and he's a little in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Youth Gone Wild

The gardens were big, leafy and cloaked in shadows. John had followed Bane through three or four of them, climbing over the tall fences and walls to drop down in flowerbeds and shrubbery. 

“This one” Bane said. 

John leaned forward to look past his shoulder. The house loomed through the greenery, which looked black now in the dead of night, and the windows dotting the facade were dark, unseeing eyes. It didn't look any different from the other ones they had passed. 

“What is that smell?” John said. It was strong, flowery, like an old woman's perfume.

“Jasmine” Bane said.

“How do you know that?”

He could see Bane smile, his profile illuminated by the pale light from the moon.

“Pamela told me.”

Pamela. John experienced a sinking feeling. He had wondered if there was anything between Bane and her. She seemed smitten with him and unlike most other people he was nice to her. Perhaps that was all it was. He was being kind, didn't have to mean anything else, John thought. John hoped. 

“Come on” Bane said and started to make his way across the lawn. 

The patio doors were easy enough to force open and Bane did it without a sound. Their sneakers were silent against the floor and John could hear his own pulse in his ears as they went from one room to another. The interior was darkness and shadows and John had to steel himself not to convince himself that every chair, every lamp, every plant, wasn't the owner of the house, pissed off and armed.

He followed Bane. He didn't even know what they were looking for. There was probably a whole bunch of stuff worth stealing here, but it was difficult to see and he felt very aware that the people who lived here were sleeping in their beds, only a door or two away.

They went upstairs. Pieces of art that were too bulky for them to carry, and that they probably wouldn't know where to fence either, lined the walls. John watched Bane's silhouette and felt a tingle in his stomach that could have been related to that they were breaking and entering, or not.

There were so many rumors surrounding Bane. That he was a former Marine, that he was a drug-addict, that he was on the FBI's most wanted list, that his father was a warlord from some undisclosed country, that he had killed a man, that he was gay. Considering his age, he was in his late teens or early twenties, just like John, most of them seemed unlikely. Most of them. 

A sound behind them made John jump and turn around. A door further down the corridor was slowly opening. There was a closet to their right and, in lack of any better ideas, they shoved themselves inside. 

John had his back pressed into a bunch of clothes, and Bane right in front of him, Bane's back flush against his front. John could hardly hear anything above his own breaths and the beating of his heart. He could smell Bane's leather jacket and underneath that something else, Bane's own, personal scent, his skin. 

To his horror he felt himself grow hard. Bane must have been able to feel it, they were standing so close. There was nowhere to go. The pure, undiluted mortification made John break out in a sweat.

“Sorr...” he began, whispering, but Bane hushed him. 

The faint sound of steps were coming from the corridor outside the door. John tried to think about anything else than Bane's closeness, for instance that if they were caught they'd get arrested. The moment seemed to stretch out for an eternity, then Bane opened the door a crack and peered out. He stepped out and John followed. 

They walked through a couple or more rooms. Bane pocketed some cash from a desk drawer in what looked like a home library, and threw a watch at John. Then they made their way outside, rounded the house and left via the driveway. John saw the name on the letter box, 'al-Ghul'. 

He was too embarrassed to look at Bane as they walked down the street, and he was paranoid that someone, in any of the houses they passed, would look out the window, see them and call the police simply because they looked like two thugs who didn't belong here. 

Bane's laughter caught him off guard. John had rarely seen him even smile, and seeing him now, under the streetlights, his eyes crinkled and that lovely mouth of his drawn into a grin made John's stomach somersault. 

“How about that for an adrenaline rush?” Bane said.

“Yeah... Sorry, though, um...” John said, unsure if he should have just pretended as if nothing had happened. 

Bane shook his head. “Don't worry about it” he said. “Here...”

He put his hand in the pocket of John's jacket and pulled out the watch. Then he took John's arm and slid the watch over his hand, fastening the clasp around his wrist. His fingers were warm where they brushed John's skin.

“You should wear that” Bane said. “A badge of honor, in remembrance of your first B and E.”

He was still smiling, beautiful and painfully unattainable, and John smiled back a little, still embarrassed, and wished he could kiss him.

**

“Oh-oh-oh, I see where your eyes are drawn.” Jack dropped into the chair next to John's and John immediately snatched his gaze away from where it had, indeed, lingered. He pretended not to have heard Jack. Much good that did.

“Captivating, isn't he?” Jack went on. “I don't know what it is... The brawn? The dazzling intellect? Hm-hm.”

“Shut up” John said. If Jack had noticed John's incessant staring, how many others had too? Had Bane? 

“He does have a certain constipated charm” Jack said.

John considered just getting up and walking away. The room was full of less annoying people. There was a game of cards going on at one table. 

“And he has worked really hard to get all that street-cred” Jack went on.

“What do you mean?”

Jack smiled his eerie smile, still looking at Bane across the room. 

“Oh, don't you know?” he said then, turning his head towards John. “He's an itsy bitsy bourgeois boy, really.”

John had spent a lot of time thinking about Bane, more than could probably be considered healthy. And he had absorbed every single tiny bit of information about him that he had heard. The problem was that not many people seemed to know a whole lot about him. 

Jack was perhaps not the most reliable of sources, but despite that, and despite that John hated to give him the satisfaction he couldn't resist asking.

“How do you know?” he said. 

“Mmm, I know lots of things.”

Jack was looking out across the room again. 

“And what do you want for sharing them?” John said eventually, sighing as he did so.

“I thought you'd never ask.” Jack turned in his seat so that he was facing John. “How about... forty bucks?”

“You want money?”

“Tacky, isn't it?”

“Okay, fine.”

John dug through his pocket, painfully aware of how pathetic he was. He had money though, since he and another guy had managed to successfully steal a bunch of stuff off the back of a truck and then sell them. It had been almost too easy.

“Do you know his real name?” John asked.

“It's Dorrance. Really, John, that's what you want to know?” Jack pocketed the notes. “Hmm... All right, here goes. Bane is from a nice home, wealthy family, all that... But they kicked him out.”

Jack made a showy gesture with his hands.

“If that's it I want my money back” John said. It did make sense, though. There was something well-mannered and educated about Bane. He liked to read, something that John found very interesting, since that was something they had in common.

“No, no, just wait. He had violent tendencies, so they sent him to military school, from which he was expelled for fighting, and then to a mental health institution.”

A light went on in John's head.

“That's where you know him from?” he said.

“I might have run in to him, once or twice.”

“Okay, then what?”

“Well, long story short. His family finally had enough, and cut him off, when he took his own, dear sister Talia's virginity.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake, shut up.” 

“You don't believe me? Why would I lie, hm?”

“Because you're a lunatic?” John's reply didn't have the edge he was going for. He had a horrible nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach. It couldn't be true. Jack was full of shit.

John looked at Bane, talking to Barsad and looking every bit as handsome as ever, and John didn't want to believe it. 

“Because we're friends, I'll give you twenty back, to compensate you for the distress these news have caused you” Jack said and let a couple of notes fall down onto John's lap. “And, since I'm the kind, generous person that I am, I will for this reduced price still let you know that he's also into guys.”

Jack got up and John remained in his seat, feeling profoundly embarrassed. He put the twenty back in his pocket. That was so sick, it had to be a lie. He looked at the watch he had on his wrist and wished he'd never asked Jack to tell him anything. 

**

Pamela had brought plants and she was placing them all over the building.

“Hey we're squatting, didn't you get the memo?” someone said. 

John thought they had a point, but he didn't say anything when Pamela placed a pot in the window in his room, because Bane was always nice to her and then John thought he could be too. 

He had tried to stop. He didn't want to like Bane anymore, not after what Jack had told him, but no matter what he did, he couldn't. Part of him didn't believe it anyway. Jack liked to shock people. As for that other piece of information, that Bane was into guys, John hadn't seen any evidence of that either. 

He thought if he could only get Bane on his own, again, he could somehow get to the truth. But Bane hadn't invited him to any late night breaking and entering again, and whenever John saw him he was always surrounded by people.

John was desperate. And lovesick. And a little drunk. He would never have done it otherwise. He figured the only time Bane was by himself was when he was locked up in his room and no one disturbed him. So that's where he went, and knocked.

He didn't expect the door to open. But it did. Bane wasn't wearing a shirt. 

“John” he said, when John didn't say anything. 

“Um...”

Bane stepped to the side, opening the door a little more. 

His room looked as desolate as everyone else's, the furniture haphazardly thrown together, things that had been found in dumpsters and whatnot. John's gaze was drawn to the mattress on the floor, the sheets tangled. 

“What can I do for you?” Bane asked. 

“I was just...” There was no way John could ask any of the questions that was floating through his head. “I wanted to see you.” 

He was embarrassed the moment the words were out of his mouth, but Bane smiled. 

“You did? That's nice.”

Bane leaned a little closer then, and John's breath got stuck in his throat for a moment.

“You want another beer?” Bane said, apparently having smelled John's breath.

“Yeah, sure.”

Bane walked over to a box on the floor and picked up two bottles. He had plants on his windowsill too. He opened the beers and handed one to John. His bare chest was distracting. 

“I heard some stuff...” John finally said.

Bane didn't say anything.

“About you” John went on. 

“And you decided to go straight to the source, rather than simply believing the rumors.”

“Well, yeah...”

Bane nodded a little. John wondered if he had offended him, but he didn't look upset.

“What is it you've heard?”

“I heard that you come from a wealthy family.”

“That is true.”

“And that you were essentially kicked out.”

“Also true.” 

“And I heard that you, eh...” If Jack was wrong, John was going to kill him. “There is this rumor, that you slept with, um, your sister.”

Bane didn't say anything for a few seconds.

“It's true” he said then.

John didn't know what to say. “Why?” he finally said.

“She asked me to.”

There was something seriously wrong with him. John didn't have any siblings, but he didn't have to, to know that was fucked up. 

“These were the things you wanted to ask me?” Bane said.

“Yeah, I guess.” John fiddled with the label on his beer bottle. When he raised his gaze Bane was looking at him. John's stomach did a back-flip and he hated himself for it. Fuck it.

He started forward and when he kissed Bane, Bane kissed him right back. John's head was spinning. They ended up on the bed. Bane's eyes were dark and his eyelashes ridiculously long. His mouth felt fantastic, warm and soft. They got rid of their clothes and Bane's skin was so hot, smooth in some places, covered in coarse hair in others.

“Have you done this before?” Bane asked after a while.

“Not really. Not all of it. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

Bane talked him through some of it. Then, sheathed inside Bane, John had to concentrate really hard not to come at once, it felt so amazing. 

He looked at Bane who looked back and John wished he could imprint that image on the back of his eyelids forever. 

“You okay?” he asked. 

Bane nodded. John felt a little unsure of how fast he could, or should, go. He didn't want this to be over too soon, either. Bane was breathing heavy underneath him, his pupils wonderfully blown, and it was amazing to John that he was causing that. 

Afterward they lay side by side, catching their breaths. Slowly reality came creeping back in. 

“I'm gay” John said.

“Really?”

It took John a second and then he started laughing. He turned his head and Bane was smiling, his gaze fixed at the ceiling. 

“Are you?” John asked.

“Yes. I don't think I would have enjoyed you fucking me in the ass that much otherwise.”

“That's crude.”

Bane rolled over onto his side, facing John. 

“Do you want to stay the night?” he asked.

John looked back at him. He shouldn't. He shouldn't even have slept with him in the first place, but now there was a hint of something almost vulnerable in his eyes, and John was in love, so he nodded.


End file.
